ThinkingAfield.org

Today, Safari Club International (SCI), the Coalition to Save Catalina Island Deer, and HOWL For Wildlife express their strong disappointment that the Los Angeles County Superior Court denied a preliminary injunction to prevent the slaughter of mule deer on Santa Catalina Island until their lawsuit challenging the eradication plan’s legality is resolved by the court.

The Court’s failure to grant the motion for preliminary injunction allows for the continued implementation of the Catalina Island Conservancy’s plan to eradicate the Island’s mule deer in the name of promoting native vegetation growth. Petitioners alleged that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife approved this project without the environmental review and public process required by law, exceeding its authority. Halting the killing of mule deer while litigation proceeds is essential to protecting this public wildlife resource from irreparable injury before the legal questions are resolved.

“SCI is disheartened that the Court failed to take the vital steps needed to protect deer on Catalina Island until SCI’s lawsuit can be resolved,” said SCI CEO W. Laird Hamberlin. “Denying this motion does not answer whether the Department followed the law; it just means the mule deer may pay the price while that question is being litigated. SCI will continue to look at all available legal avenues to stop this senseless slaughter.”

“We are deeply disappointed by the Court’s decision. We believe the Court got the irreparable-harm analysis wrong and relied on factual premises that are not supported by—and in some instances are difficult to reconcile with—the record before it, including the Conservancy’s own documents,” said Melinda Benson, Attorney for the Coalition to Save Catalina Island Mule Deer. “As the petitioner organization whose members include people who live on Catalina and experience this Island every day, we also know that the harm cannot be reduced to a percentage of the deer population. Our members will hike these trails, camp in these places, encounter the aftermath of the killing, and live with the knowledge that animals treasured by this community are being systematically destroyed while the legality of the program remains unresolved. The ruling does not decide that the eradication program is lawful, and we will continue to pursue every available avenue to protect Catalina’s deer.”

“We’re deeply disappointed, because once these deer are killed there is no remedy that can bring them back,” said Charles Whitwam, Founder of HOWL For Wildlife. “A denial of preliminary relief does not resolve the larger questions about how this project was approved or whether the required process was followed. We will continue fighting for those answers and for every available opportunity to prevent an irreversible decision from outrunning the law.” Read more

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are reaching their peak migration period across the eastern half of the United States (photos by Paul Konrad).

As hummingbirds are migrating and making crucial stopovers during September, it is interesting to learn more about the biology and energetics of how some Ruby-throated Hummingbirds prepare for long non-stop fall migration flights. During a study of Ruby-throats making a stopover in southern Alabama, one of several interesting pieces of information was discovered that permitted researchers to estimate that the “average” Ruby-throated Hummingbird has a nonstop migration flight range of about 1,320 miles.

The Alabama study found that some Ruby-throats effectively double their body mass during feeding bouts during a migration stopover, in advance of making long-distance migration flights. To study these and other topics, researcher Theodore Zenzal and his colleagues captured, banded, measured, weighed, and released 2,729 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds during 5 fall migration periods at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, located on the southern tip of Alabama adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico.

After collecting weight and age data about each hummingbird they caught, the researchers used a computer program to estimate the Ruby-throats’ flight range based on birds’ body mass and wingspan. The resulting information provided their estimate that the “average” Ruby-throated Hummingbird has a flight range of about 1,320 miles. Using this method, they also predicted that older hummingbirds and males were able to travel farther than younger hummingbirds and females.

The flight ranges that researchers calculated mean that most Ruby-throats would be able to migrate directly across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, a distance of less than 700 miles. While it is not yet substantiated that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds migrate across the Gulf of Mexico in numbers, new methods of tracking hummingbirds should soon provide more information about that continuing question. For now, researchers believe most Ruby-throated Hummingbirds migrate around the Gulf, funneling along the coast to locations like Rockport, Texas and the Corpus Christi area, then south.

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds tend to migrate earlier than females in many areas, with young of the year averaging slightly later migration times. Read more